A Los Angeles-based nonprofit opened an early childhood center specifically for children whose families are seeking asylum in the United States. This center is one of the only places available where migrant children can play and learn for free.

Protesters opposed to Mexico’s rising gasoline prices blocked traffic on Baja California’s Transpeninsular Highway on Wednesday south of Ensenada near San Quintin.

A spokesman for Mexico’s Federal Police said that the road remained closed on Wednesday afternoon at the community of Camalu. The highway is a main artery for passenger and truck traffic headed up and down the Baja California peninsula.

There have been a number of blockades set up on the Transpeninsular Highway in the San Quintin area since Monday, a day after Mexico’s federal government moved to deregulate gasoline prices, leading to price increases as high as 20 percent.

The new policy abolishes the prevailing practice in Mexico for the government to set the price for gasoline.

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A U.S. resident of the San Quintin area, Jim Sprague, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that the gas station in Ejido Emiliano Zapata was closed, as were others in the vicinity.

Protests have been taking place across Mexico this week. In Rosarito Beach, demonstrators have prevented gasoline trucks from entering or exiting the PEMEX storage and distribution facility.

“I think that by tomorrow several will have to close due to a lack of supply because of the blockade of the Rosarito plant,” said Alejandro Borja, whose family owns three gas stations in Tijuana.

As homicides in Mexico continue to break records, President Andres Manuel López Obrador has declared an end to his country’s drug war, and announced a special plan for Tijuana that involves the collaboration of military forces and civilian law enforcement agencies.

The 209th anniversary of the Grito de Independencia (Mexican Independence Day) will be celebrated Sunday and among the planned festivities in San Diego is the return of the traditional ceremony to the Mexican consulate after nearly 20 years.

A group of Honduran asylum seekers are building their own migrant shelter in Tijuana because they say there isn’t enough room for the thousands of Central Americans being returned to Mexico by the United States.